Joe Kottke

A Michigan school district canceled its plan for an elementary classroom mini-lesson on gender identity and pronouns after receiving backlash from community members, Dewitt Public Schools Superintendent Shanna Spickard said Friday.

The lesson was announced by the district as a voluntary activity for one first grade class outside of the school curriculum to “promote greater understanding, compassion, and kindness regarding gender identity and the use of pronouns.” The district said it informed parents and guardians in advance of offering the lesson to allow the opportunity for families to opt out of having their children participate.

School district staff members reportedly received “inappropriate, angry, and threatening phone calls, emails, and social media messages” after the announcement, and several staff members had their personal information posted online “to harass and intimidate them,” Spickard said.

“While the vast majority of these inappropriate communications have originated outside of our community, several staff members have expressed feeling anxious, stressed, and even afraid to go to school,” she said. “This is unacceptable.”

Spickard said the district is in contact with local law enforcement, and there is an increased police and administrative presence on grounds as precautionary measures.

“The goal of the voluntary mini-lesson was to help promote Dewitt Public Schools’ vision of a safe, nurturing, and supportive learning environment where all learners can succeed,” Spickard said. “Unfortunately, it has become a major disruption and distraction to that vision in which our staff, administrators, and students feel unsafe.”

On Wednesday, two days before the cancellation, the district remindedcommunity members that the gender identity and pronoun lesson is voluntary and would only be offered for one first grade classroom.

“The mini-lesson is not designed to challenge, persuade, or alter family beliefs. Instead, it aims to promote a safe and respectful learning environment where all our students feel valued,” the district stated.

Community members had mixed reactions to the announcement.

“They don’t need to learn about anything that’s personal or sexualized or gender-specific at 5 years old,” DeWitt parent Brandi Strahan told NBC affiliate WILX, which covers the Lansing, Michigan, area.

A former DeWitt parent also told WILX: “Even if people don’t understand it, it’s all about inclusion and making every kid feel safe and welcome in any district.”

Spickard said the decision to cancel plans for the mini-lesson was not made lightly, and that the development would “please some and disappoint others in the school community.”

Less than two months into 2024, lawmakers in at least 13 states have introduced legislation that could disrupt libraries’ services and censor their materials. The new wave of bills follows a historic year of book challenges, mainly affecting titles centered on the topics of race, gender identity or sexual orientation.

“The American Library Association condemns in the strongest terms possible legislation in more than a dozen states that would threaten librarians and other educators with criminal prosecution for doing their jobs,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, in a statement. “This is not a culture war; it’s a threat to our democracy.”

Caldwell-Stone added, “Nowhere have we witnessed attacks on education like those currently proposed in Wisconsin.” 

The Wisconsin Legislature is considering a bill to take away protections from library employees being prosecuted on charges of possessing “obscene” materials by removing public, private and tribal schools from the list of institutions exempt from prosecution for obscene materials violations.

“Those who would prosecute librarians and teachers would divert precious education resources to defending frivolous lawsuits and policing our nation’s most trusted institutions and community anchors: libraries and schools,” Caldwell-Stone said.

In Idaho, a bill proposes to prohibit librarians from making materials that include sexual conduct available to minors. Homosexuality is included in that category alongside sexual intercourse and masturbation. 

Caldwell-Stone said the American Library Association is familiar with “attempts to rewrite obscenity statutes” to encompass specific books and topics, and she said she considers it a form of discrimination.

Obscenity laws in the majority of the states provide exemptions and are designed to prevent legal action against school, museum and library employees, who typically provide access to a breadth of materials.

Revoking those exemptions would mean schools and libraries would have to spend more time and resources on defense against scrutiny, Caldwell-Stone said.

She added that making cases for published resources to be considered obscene must be conducted by judges and juries with evidence brought forward by prosecutors.

“We’re seeing attempts by advocacy groups to file criminal charges against librarians and educators for books that they would like to see out of the library, and over and over again, these prosecutors decline to prosecute because there is absolutely no evidence that the books meet the most minimal standards for obscenity under the Miller Test,” she said.

The Miller Test is the U.S. Supreme Court’s legal test to determine what works are obscene. A book, a picture or a film is classified as obscene if it “describes or shows sexual conduct in a patently offensive way” or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, educational, or scientific value.” 

On Feb. 9, the Utah Senate Education Committee advanced a bill to amend provisions to identify and remove ”indecent material.” Another bill would allow public school employees in the state to be charged if “objectively sensitive” materials were made available to students. 

“To open the door to the prosecution of librarians and educators for doing the work we ask them to do is to allow one individual or one group to dictate what our students learn according to their personal beliefs, regardless of the beliefs and choices of other families in the community,” Caldwell-Stone said. 

The material that would be most affected includes information about puberty, reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation, Caldwell-Stone said.

“These books touch on topics that don’t match the values or tastes of some groups but are absolutely wanted and needed by other members of the community, and they should be able to find those books in a publicly funded library,” she said.

In addition to changing obscenity laws, some states are moving ahead with legislation that would make library board elections more frequent and create committees to process requests to move materials. 

Some states are considering legislation that could target drag performers. Iowa state Sen. Sandy Salmon introduced a bill in January that could make it a crime for someone involved in a similar event at a public library to expose minors to an “obscene performance,” defined as one that includes sexual acts or “appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive.”

“These efforts are simply an attempt to intimidate and chill librarians and educators from serving everyone in their community,” Caldwell-Stone said.

Other state legislatures are considering changes to obscenity laws this year, including Wyoming’s, Nebraska’s and Indiana’s. Caldwell-Stone said that it is still early in legislative sessions and that initial hearings and cost concerns could affect whether the bills pass.